On Nights Like This
by fountainofthought
Summary: She hardly ever thought about him anymore. Except on nights like this...
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own 'em. I just borrowed them for a minute.

AN: This is a little something that popped into my head last month. It's just a chance to get some of my own thoughts out in Gilmore Girls form. Enjoy.

She hardly ever thought about him anymore. What used to be a physically painful longing had dulled to mere curiosity now. Except on nights like this – estranged from her mother for the moment, holed up in her grandparents' pool house, ignoring her boyfriend's calls. On nights like this his memory reared up from the dark corner of her mind where she thought she had tamed him. The what ifs of their relationship leapfrogged through her thoughts, like sheep she counted with less soporific effect.

In the first weeks after he left, thoughts of him had been her constant companions. When she woke, she remembered his first visit to her room, the wicked gleam in his eye as he stood poised to escape through her window frame. When she stumbled into the kitchen for her first cup of coffee, she remembered him bringing her dinner and needling a sour-faced Paris. The recollection almost made her smile, or maybe cry, but then she would steady herself resolutely and move on. Walking into Luke's was like running an emotional gauntlet; the moment she opened the door she was hit with the full weight of their relationship and the barely concealed pity in the patrons' eyes. All too frequently she would escape to the bridge – their bridge – to let the memories bombard her in private. In her solitary moments she couldn't shake him; his memory was attentive as he had never been.

Her thoughts regularly took her back to their last – albeit one-sided – conversation, when she had stood in her graduation gown and rambled into a silent phone line. She had lied to him that day, or at least equivocated, as though adding a rush of qualifying words between "I" and "loved you" could somehow stem the tide of feelings in her heart. She had loved Dean; she had been _in love_ with Jess. Though at the time the use of past tense had been false, now she felt fairly confident that it was true. Even a year ago, when he had returned to shock her with his own declaration, her overwhelming emotion had been anger, not love. How did he always manage to pick just the wrong time to declare himself? She had finally been getting over him when he showed up to shatter her fragile equilibrium. She had rejected his offer out of anger, yes, but also out of a strong sense of self-preservation and even fatalism. A love that incendiary could never last.

Finally, this year, she had begun to shed his constant company and reclaim her own mind once again. There where days when, while focusing in class or editing a particularly tricky article for the paper, she would belatedly realize that she hadn't thought of him for five minutes, or ten, or an hour. And when she brazened her way through that seduction at her grandparents' vow renewal, she barely thought about how this version of herself compared to the one who had melted into him outside the gas station one quiet and long-awaited night.

He hadn't completely left her thoughts, though, and she began to wonder if maybe it was okay to have him there. She questioned too, whether it was possible to love him and love another at the same time. Not that she was there yet, with Logan, but it seemed possible, as though if she just relaxed enough and didn't try too hard to block the past from her heart, she could ease into a new love with enough room left for the old. She thought it might not be fair to either of them, but she couldn't imagine her mind, her heart, any other way. His memory was a part of her, her very own version of him that always knew what to say. She was beginning to realize that his presence didn't have to diminish her new life at all. She felt guilty, sometimes, as though she was cheating on her boyfriend with a memory, but somewhere, in the part of herself that had never truly been naïve, she knew that their histories were the one thing that would always stand between them.

On nights like this, her memories were a security blanket she could pull out to protect her from the chill of her own bad choices, by giving her something to obsess about that she could no longer change. It was strangely comforting to turn their history over and over in her mind, wondering fruitlessly how she might have done things differently. The no longer viable possibilities were an escape hatch from the very real decisions she needed to be making; their constantly revolving options kept the past alive if only in her mind. In reality, when she allowed her thoughts to wander there, she knew she was leaving him behind her more every day. She almost dreaded the day, nearer now, when she would see him again and feel nothing beyond friendly curiosity. She wanted him to leave her alone, but she didn't want to let him go. Letting him go would mean that she was growing up, that all her choices mattered now, that she could no longer escape back to a time when her biggest decision had to do with which boy to kiss, not which life path to follow.

Reluctantly, she let her responsible side pull her back to the present, where she had choices to make and relationships to rebuild. Jess had been so important for so long, but now he was just an excuse to hide behind when the world seemed too frightening to face alone. She hoped one day to smile at her memories of him with the healthy distance her own happiness would create. In the meantime, she was stuck wading through the messes she had created instead. With a resolute calm she didn't feel, she picked up the phone and dialed familiar numbers.

"Mom? It's me, Rory. Can we talk?"


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: I didn't originally intend for this to be more than a one shot, but another player in this little drama wanted his say. Plus, getting reviews is really addictive. Go figure.

He stared down at the phone that had once again found its way into his hand and sighed. He had already called her three times since that afternoon, and despite his best efforts the messages had grown increasingly edged with desperation. In the daylight, he was fully in control of his emotions. He could handle having a girlfriend in the same way he handled everything else – with determination and a little bit of distance for his safety. On nights like this, though, he found his mind wandering, bit by bit, into the realm of insecurity. He was worried about her, damn it, and she wasn't returning his calls. He didn't know what to do with his worry except to let it churn its way into anger. At this rate, by the time she called him back all he would be able to do would be to yell at her. Even though he was still new to the whole boyfriend thing, he suspected that wouldn't go over so well. Girls were funny like that; in the middle of a crisis, they didn't like their boyfriends to scream at them.

He finally put the phone down, only to fill his empty hands with a beer bottle. He was pacing now, back and forth across his apartment's living room, beer in hand, like some love-sick swain. Was that what he had become? The thought made him pause and stumble to the arm of his couch for support. He knew he cared about her; it was impossible not to. But love? He didn't know if he was ready for that, or hell, even capable of it. He was just starting to get the hang of monogamy. Adding intense emotion on top of that might just break him. As it stood now, his friends already thought he was losing his touch. With the evidence of nights like this, he was beginning to secretly agree with them. He wasn't the same guy he'd been before he became her boyfriend. He wasn't even the same guy he'd been before they met. And what was more, he wasn't sure he cared to ever be that guy again. His friends would be appalled when they finally realized that piece of the puzzle.

He stood and turned to his bookcase, looking for something, anything, to take his mind off of the interminable waiting he seemed to be in for tonight. He had always loved to read – it was inevitable with his lineage – but his obsession with books had grown stronger since she had come into his life. He loved the way her eyes lit up when he threw a literary reference into their playful conversations, as though he had tossed her gemstones instead of words. Lately he had found himself casually cataloguing what he read so that he might have something to say that was guaranteed to make her smile. Everything these days had that same goal – her happiness – in mind. He gave up his extra cup of coffee in the mornings just so she wouldn't turn her gorgeous but lethal eyes on him, begging for just one more sip. He spent innumerable weekend nights on her couch watching movies instead of out making mischief with the guys. He had even turned on his hereditary charm to please her grandparents, and was currently engaged in a battle to win over her mother's trust despite the black mark of his background. He faced a formidable challenge on that front, particularly after his father's recent unpleasant but, he was certain, carefully planned comments about his girlfriend's choice of career.

Shaking his head, he settled onto the couch with a battered copy of Slaughterhouse Five, intent on both reading and plotting out ways to maneuver his father into a position of acute misery. Those kinds of machinations were apparently a family trait, he thought wryly, so it shouldn't take long to come up with something suitably painful. Even having grown up under his father's tutelage, he was still occasionally taken aback by his staggering and at times evil genius. Only his dad would know the perfect words to say to turn his normally composed girlfriend into a quivering mass of insecurities. At some point soon he would have to find a way to return the favor, but for the moment he was biding his time – while waiting impatiently for her to call.

As though he had willed it so, the phone rang and he leapt up to answer it.

"Rory?" His voice held more than a tinge of desperate hope, but he didn't notice in his haste.

He listened intently to the voice on the other end of the line, his shoulders quickly slumping in defeat.

"No, Finn, I haven't misplaced my girlfriend. And no, you can't have her if you find her first! Tell Colin to keep you out of trouble. I'll see you in a few days."

He ended the call and threw the phone down on the couch in frustration. The truth was, he _had_ misplaced his girlfriend. Before he'd left her, he had tried to calm her down as best he could, but she was still upset enough to be volatile. She might have gone home to her mother, or taken refuge in the library, or she could be dead on the side of the road for all he knew. It was that last option that was really freaking him out. It had gotten to the point where he couldn't really imagine his life without her in it. For weeks now he had been walking blindly into unfamiliar territory when it came to their relationship, but it was quickly becoming apparent that the territory he was mapping was within his own heart. She was beautiful, she was special, she was turning him into an emotional wreck with every minute she didn't call him back. As his desperation finally overtook his other instincts, he retrieved the phone from among the couch cushions and dialed an unfamiliar number.

"Richard, this is Logan Huntzberger…she's there? I'm on my way."


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Looks like somebody else wanted their say. I guess it's only fair that we get to hear the other end of that first phone call. As always, enjoy.

She was pacing again, shuffling along a loop that took her from the living room into the kitchen, where her eyes swept past her daughter's bedroom door before she hurtled back out into the hall. Once she had circled the couch each time, though, she felt herself pulled inexorably back toward the kitchen as though to the scene of the crime. This time around, she paused in the doorway, her vision registering the expectant tidiness of the items within. Books tilted carefully on bookshelves, waiting for their brethren to return and fill the holes they had left back in September. The closet door was open, wooden hangers lined up in wait for summer dresses. The naked mattress shone like a beacon in the darkness, its shiny white fabric uncovered except where Rory's favorite duck sheets sat waiting to be stretched across it. She hadn't found the hope yet to make the bed, or the full-fledged despair required to put the sheets away.

As she stepped across the threshold to sink onto the edge of the bed, she smelled the slight tang of wood polish from her annual pre-summer cleaning the week before. She felt tears pricking her eyelids, but quickly ascribed them to the harshness of the lingering chemicals. To keep from brushing at the threatening wetness at the corners of her eyes, she wound her hands together and resumed her day-old habit of rubbing the naked skin of her ring finger where an engagement ring would shortly rest. Her thoughts immediately skated to Luke, to the proposal that had burst forth from within her the night before, and her lips curved up in a tiny smile.

She had never before had someone to turn to, even in thought, on nights like this, when the world felt like it was conspiring against her. Her parents had never come through for her, and after their performance yesterday she doubted she would ever think of leaning on them again. Chris had always been fleetingly supportive at best, and she had learned the hard way that his nature and circumstances beyond her control always combined to keep him from her when she needed him most. Sookie was reliable in her own flighty way, but there were some things even best friends couldn't fix. But Luke, with his patient faithfulness, his quiet love, bolstered her even when he wasn't around.

He had offered to spend the night with her tonight, but she had politely and firmly declined. She needed to wrestle with her demons alone, but that didn't mean she wouldn't draw on their relationship to give her the necessary strength. Walking into her daughter's room was the first step toward working through the current mess. Just sitting here was softening her righteous indignation, turning it into questioning of her own behavior and sadness for her baby's confused decision-making. She studied the wall dedicated to Yale, and felt the wetness of a single tear sliding down her cheek. For the past decade or more, their entire lives had revolved around the shining promise of an Ivy League education. Though she knew Rory thought she had just put their plans slightly on hold, she was irrationally afraid that they could never be regained. More immediately, she was terrified that her reaction to Rory's change in plans had irrevocably shifted their relationship. Whatever else happened, she never wanted to be accused of turning into her controlling mother.

Resigned, she stood up and gathered the duck sheets in her arms, intent on clearing the way for reconciliation if only in one tiny way. As she smoothed the sheets across the mattress, she thought about the physical manifestations of her motherhood: the hundreds and thousands of freshly laundered sheets and socks and tank tops that she had folded and placed on this bed; the innumerable trips to office supply stores for pens and pencils and reams of lined paper; the books she had so carefully selected and read to her little girl to inculcate a voracious love of reading. She could show her love in innumerable practical ways, but none of those actions could compete in importance with the way she dealt with this moment of crisis in her daughter's life. Crease-free duck sheets could only take her so far.

She eased the comforter up over duck-covered pillows and tucked it in securely before turning to leave. One final glance showed her that everything was in its place, and so she gently pulled the door closed. Hopefully the next person to open it would be the room's rightful occupant. She moved into the hallway slowly, a criminal awaiting her sentencing. The phone felt unusually heavy, as though weighted down by her transgressions. She stared at it, willing it to ring, hoping childishly that she wouldn't have to make the first move.

Moments later, it rang shrilly, jolting her from her reverie. She stared at it in disbelief for a few seconds before bringing it unsteadily to her ear.

"Hello?" She listened intently, her eyes widening, then softening. "Can we talk? Of course, Rory. I'd like that…"


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: I put this away for what? Two years? But now it's back, if only in this small way. I always have loved Richard...

He knew it was pointless, but he couldn't seem to tear his eyes away from the window, her window now, or for the moment at least. On nights like this, he typically had a nightcap in his study before joining his wife in their bedroom. Tonight, his drink stood unfinished on the desk, a ring of water marring the gleaming surface. His hands gripped the windowsill instead of his glass as he stared into the night. He couldn't see any movement inside the room, but the light was still on, and he clung to that one reality as he watched. She was there, inside his world, among his many masculine things. Just this once – this first time, he told himself – she had come to them, come to him, in her moment of need. Her mother, who she had always seen with wonder, and he with confusion, was the one being run from now. He was the safe haven. He held tight to this new role, even as he goggled at it. He was never the one who could fix things before.

When the phone rang in his study, he was embarrassed to admit that his first hope was for anyone other than his daughter on the other end. He was not ready for her to come to her senses, or her anger, or her fear. He was not ready to give up his precious granddaughter yet. He felt as though he had only just found her, the girl who needed him for more than money and pride in her accomplishments. The girl who showed up for more than duty.

Duty-bound, he lifted the receiver.

"Richard Gilmore…" He listened to the voice, not his daughter's, as it expressed the same anxiety he was feeling. Though he knew where she was, he didn't know what to do. He was a man of action, but in this moment all he could do was watch her window and hope. Sighing, he brought his attention back to the voice at the other end of the line.

"…ah, Logan. If you're looking for Rory, she's here at the moment. Yes, of course. We'll see you soon."


End file.
